


the best family (is the one we choose)

by Argentina



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas Fluff, Comfort/Angst, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Family Fluff, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Self-Acceptance, Self-Doubt, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Teen Angst, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21801649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argentina/pseuds/Argentina
Summary: Weiss Schnee doesn’t exactly have a great father figure to lead her through life, so she doesn’t know how to feel when Tai comes to visit his daughters at the school and shows what a proper father should be like.Everything’s a blur of emotions, and she can hardly breathe.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Comments: 4
Kudos: 241





	the best family (is the one we choose)

**Author's Note:**

> Alrightyyyy, I couldn’t wait to post this so I’m finishing this instead of sleeping (hey, it’s the weekend anyway) 
> 
> The title is from a Naruto fic series and the story idea is based off of a comment on Weiss’s theme song on youtube
> 
> The RWBY series put me through a roller coaster of emotions and I’m still barely into watching volume 6, but here we are. Enjoy!

Weiss has never been one to call her childhood glamorous, luxurious, or even just good at all, because it wasn’t. It wasn’t good, and even if she’s not sure about anything else in her life, she’s sure about that.

Her father isn’t exactly the type of person you’d call ‘warm’ or ‘welcoming’. He was quite the opposite, actually. No wonder she gets called the Ice Queen, because she sees exactly who she gets it from now.

So when she meets Ruby and Yang’s father for the first time, she doesn’t know how to react. 

It’s not the fact that she’s surprised by his appearance, having never seen him before, but rather she’s surprised by his attitude. His demeanor, his behavior. Everything about his personality, solely because she’s never known what it’s like to have a father like him. 

He’s amazing in every single way. She leans against the wall of the hallway and simply watches as his two beloved daughters head up to him to give him a hug. He had just arrived for a holiday visit, which Ruby had insisted on ever since October, using the fact that it’s the team’s first year here, and it’d be nice to have introductions be made as soon as possible. 

“Dad!” Ruby squeals, clinging on to Taiyang like there’s no tomorrow. He hugs her back, and Yang rolls her eyes, smiling, and proceeds to give him a brief embrace from the back, due to her sister taking up all of the space on his other side. 

Weiss finds their little reunion quite endearing, although it does seem oddly foreign to her. It’s weird, seeing such a small family come together like that, when she seems to have a much larger family, and yet not a single one of them treat her the way Tai treats his children. 

Like they’re everything to him. He genuinely cares, and not for the benefit or some ulterior motive. Or at least she doesn’t think so, because he really doesn’t seem like the type of person to do that. After all, he doesn’t run the world’s most successful dust company or is looking to inherit that type of power. Unlike a few people she knows. 

“It’s so great to see you two again,” Tai says, chuckling. He finally releases Ruby, dropping her off on the floor and stepping aside to let a few people walking pass by. He looks up at Blake and Weiss and smiles, holding out his hand. “And you two must be the teammates Ruby has written to me about.”

“Blake Belladonna,” Blake introduces, stepping forward from beside Weiss on the wall to shake his hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you!”

Weiss watches, furrowing her brow. Tai is the polar opposite of Jacques. Jacques doesn’t like to meet new people, but when the time comes that he must do so, he does it with hesitation and blatant suspicion. As if he’s the one uncomfortable with the encounter, when really he’s usually the one that changes the demeanor of the other person and makes them uneasy in turn. People like him don’t truly have friends, she supposes, because the only people ‘close’ to him are solely family, servants, or anyone else looking for the fortune of his company.

Ruby giggles, doing a little twirl. Yang laughs and grabs her hand, pulling her to the side. 

“You’re blocking the hallway,” she chastises jokingly, moving her sister to the other side of the corridor, leaning on the wall opposite of Weiss.

“It’s great to meet you as well, Miss Belladonna,” Tai acknowledges, smiling at the faunus. He turns to gaze at Weiss, and she snaps out of her thoughts, realizing that it’s her turn to greet him. 

She tentatively pushes herself off the wall and steps forward, shaking his hand the way Blake did. “Weiss Schnee.”

“Daughter of Jacques Schnee?” Tai questions, and even though Weiss knows that it’s meant without harsh feelings or any malicious intents, she can’t help but feel bitter at the mention of her father’s name. She’s more than just his daughter; she’s her own person, and she wants people to realize that. 

She nods, forcing a smile. It must’ve not reached her eyes, because Tai softens his expression, nodding. “Okay. It’s nice to get to know you.”

“You too,” Weiss rushes through her words, and promptly breaks eye contact, striding over the wall where Blake has now joined the sisters, chattering animatedly about something she doesn’t have to heart to find out what it is at the moment. 

Absentmindedly, she sees Tai check the time on his wristwatch. He turns back to the team. 

“Alright, who’s ready for some lunch? My treat.”

“I am!” Ruby exclaims, bouncing around her father. Always the enthusiast and optimistic one. Weiss wonders how she has so much energy all the time. Surely she has to feel tired at some point. 

“Where are we going?” Yang asks. She trails behind Ruby and Tai and they start to walk along the hall, heading in the direction to the exit. Blake and Weiss follow suit. 

“Depends on what you would like to eat,” Tai tells her, and before she can respond, Ruby speaks up again. 

“Ramen!” she declares, and Yang elbows her lightly. “Ow! Sis!”

“We’ve had ramen every day for the past week, and I didn’t even do it that hard! How does that hurt?” she scoffs, and Tai rolls his eyes at his children’s antics. 

“Don’t fight, you two,” he tells them. The five of them step out into the bright sunlight when they make their way out of the school’s building. There are people all around, talking about whatever families talk about, Weiss guesses. 

A lot of people seem to be having reunions at this time of year, especially since it’s winter break and school is out for two weeks. It’s the perfect time to get together with your loved ones and hang out at the shopping district. 

Blake had told them beforehand that her parents will be busy this year, trying to keep Menagerie and the White Fang in order, but she had also promised that team RWBY will be able to meet her family one day, whether it be during the summer or next winter. Weiss doesn’t blame Blake’s parents for that. It must be a hard job, and she has no doubt that her parents care a great deal about her. 

When she was asked about her own family, however, she just shook her head and said that running a company wasn’t easy, and that they won’t be visiting this year. She didn’t say that they wouldn’t be visiting any other year either, so the rest of team RWBY had just assumed that they were only busy, not that they didn’t want to see her at all. Or rather that she didn’t want to see them, but she didn’t mention that part. Her story isn’t exactly a lie as much as it is a half-truth, but she’s glad they didn’t press on. 

She can’t risk that type of discovery about her life, especially when she has a reputation to uphold. 

She’s Weiss Schnee, she’s not supposed to be soft. She’s not supposed to be frivolous and carefree like the rest of them; she’s supposed to be a leader, set an example of a warrior and a perfect student for the rest of the school. For the rest of the world. Because that’s how everyone else in her family is, and has always been, so she’s not looking to deviate from that right now, not when the world would judge her for it, because of her social status.

It’s not fair.

She pulls on her long sleeves and straightens down her skirt, making sure that she looks proper, just as she’s meant to be. 

“-kay, okay! Ramen it is!” She distantly hears Tai call out in front of her. 

“No!” Yang protests, crossing her arms. “Not ramen, again, don’t listen to Ruby, dad!”

“Yang, it’s the closest shop. It’s okay, let’s just do this for now so we can have more time for other activities later today. And you love ramen, don’t deny it,” Tai says, trying to console his oldest daughter. 

“Fine,” Yang sighs, looking down at her shoes. “But we have to go clothes shopping later.”

“Yeah!” Ruby agrees.

“Anything for you two,” Tai says without hesitation, and Weiss’s heart melts a little at that. 

They walk to the tiny ramen shop run by that man that Weiss swears she’s seen many more times than just once, and not even at the same place. She decides that she needs to pay more attention the next time she goes somewhere, because he gives her a weird sense of deja vu for some reason. 

~

The day went by for Weiss in a blur, a mix of emotions and zoning out and whatnot. She’s not aware of it for the most part, and time slips right through her fingers like it’s liquid, something tangible, but yet, she can’t hold onto.

They’re back in their dorms before they know it, and she finds herself sitting down on her bed, looking up at the Ruby’s mattress that she had hung precariously above hers the day the team did some redecorating. She still worries that it might fall one day, even though it seems to have been pretty stable for the time being. It hasn’t even slipped down an inch, and it’s been a few months since they all moved into the room, so she counts that as a win. 

She pulls a book out from under her bed, looking for the bookmark placement and opening it up to the page where she last left off, trying to figure out which line it was specifically. She sees Blake and Yang both viewing a random video on Yang’s phone, both of them giggling occasionally. It must be something trendy, because she knows for a fact that that’s all they ever view whenever they check the internet, if it isn’t for texting or calling one another. 

Ruby steps out of the bathroom and walks over. Weiss doesn’t look up, keeping her eyes on the book. She expects Ruby to climb up to her bunk, but she doesn’t.

Instead, the red-themed girl sits down right next to Weiss on her bed, trying to make space by her feet, since Weiss was stretched out along the length of the mattress.

“Hey.”

Weiss looks up, her nose still buried into the crisp pages of her story. Weird. Ruby is usually very nice toward everybody, but she never gives her special attention in that way, so it’s a little off-putting. 

“Hey,” Weiss greets back awkwardly. She feels out of place. 

“Are you okay?” Ruby asks, and Weiss is taken aback. Out of everything her roommate could’ve chosen to said, she asked that. Not whether she found today to be fun, not whether she liked the food during lunch and dinner, not if she enjoyed hanging out and meeting Tai, but whether she was okay. 

“I-” Weiss begins, stuttering and not knowing where to go with her train of thought. She ends up going with the response she knows all too well. “Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, Ruby,” Weiss clarifies, clearing her throat. “I’m good.”

What was the other girl trying to find out? There’s nothing to find out.

“Then what was that this afternoon?” Ruby prompts, pressing on. Weiss slides her bookmark back in between the pages of her book and closes it, placing it to the side. 

“What do you mean?” Weiss asks, and for a single, fleeting moment, she panics. Ruby didn’t see that, did she? The way she couldn’t focus on what was going on around her, what was happening right beside her just because she was concentrated on how unusual it was for her to see Tai being such a caring and loving father to Ruby and Yang, and how he was such a genuine person to everyone else too, even if he didn’t know them personally.

She hopes it wasn’t that obvious, because that’s not going to end well. She doesn’t want to talk about it. 

“I mean, you didn’t look like you were okay,” Ruby says vaguely, and Weiss narrows her eyes. 

“Care to elaborate?” 

“That’s what I was hoping you could do,” Ruby says, attempting to adjust her sitting position on the bed. Weiss moves her legs, drawing them up to her chest to make room for the younger girl. “I don’t know what’s wrong unless you tell me, Weiss. But I do know something was off.”

“And how do you know that, exactly?” She questions, trying to deflect the direct question. She really doesn’t want to be here right now. Not at all.

“I know you, Weiss. You’re opinionated, tough, and you tend to disagree with people sometimes, but you’re not quiet. Except for today, you were, and that wasn’t normal,” Ruby explains, gesturing like it’s pretty obvious. 

“Ruby. I’m just tired. Let me sleep,” Weiss says, hoping she got out of it, she lies down and turns to the wall, away from Ruby, and closes her eyes, taking a deep breath to calm her nerves. 

“Weiss,” Ruby says, and her voice softens fractionally. “Weiss, listen to me.”

Weiss doesn’t say anything, but Ruby knows she’s listening, so she continues on. “Even though it may not seem like it, because we both aren’t the best of friends, but I care about you. I do, and I need you to know that.”

Weiss bites her lip, burying her face into her pillow.

“So, what’s wrong, Weiss?”

Weiss shakes her head, and she feels Ruby’s hand on her back. She leans into the touch, and is promptly pulled into an embrace. 

“It’s okay, you don’t need to say anything if you really don’t want to, but I’m worried.”

Weiss presses her eyes shut tightly at that, because she doesn’t know how to feel about it. The fact that someone like Ruby could care about her even though she hasn’t exactly been the nicest person. 

“I’ll be here for you, no matter what. Whenever or if you ever choose to tell me, I’ll be here to listen.”

And Weiss nods at that, turning around to press her forehead to the smaller girl’s shoulder, falling into soft fabric of her pajamas. Falling into the safety, the reassurance of a friend. 

She doesn’t have to do this alone anymore.


End file.
